Harrison shares thoughts on election, Synod priorities

In the new video released June 17, LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison shares his thoughts about the recent election that returned him to office and what the Synod will be focusing on in the next few years. The “number-one” priority, he says, will be “Every One His Witness,” the church body’s new evangelism effort to “teach people how to share Jesus with those who don’t know him.”

In a new, four-minute video released June 17, LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison shares his thoughts about the recent election — which returned him to office for a third term — and what the Synod will be focusing on in the next few years.

In the video, Harrison thanks voters for their “very strong show of support” in the triennial election, which he calls “a very humbling kind of thing, and also healthy” because it underscores for elected leaders that they are “dispensable.”

He also thanks the other two candidates for president — the Rev. Dr. David P.E. Maier and the Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer — for standing for election, and reads a comment from each from their statements in the June 2016 Reporter and Reporter Online (see “Nominees for president answer Facebook followers’ questions“).

Among the priorities of the LCMS in the next few years is “especially, number one, ‘Every One His Witness,’ our new evangelism effort that is rolling out this summer. And I hope that we get the entire Synod involved in this strong effort to teach people how to share Jesus with those who don’t know him,” Harrison says in the video.

“Number two, we will continue to stand in the face of this culture and confess Jesus Christ as Lord,” he says. “We’ll stand by our universities. We’ll stand by our parochial schools. We’ll stand by our church workers and congregations. And we will do so with joy, knowing that it is a blessing to suffer for the name of Jesus and for the sake of sharing His saving message.

“And finally, three, we will continue to stand as a beacon, God willing, for the truth of the Lutheran confession as it is confessed in our Book of Concord, and as it is testified to in the Holy Scriptures. And we will continue to see, God willing, some very exciting things happening as world Lutheranism continues to shift in a dramatic fashion.”

As believers in “Jesus and His blessed forgiveness,” Harrison adds, “let’s forgive one another, let’s love one another and let’s challenge one another to live in joy, and outreach, in the name of Jesus, for the blessing of the world.”

Watch video

Posted June 17, 2016